Watch the Flank

Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863, 5:30 p.m.

The men of the XI Corps of the Army of the Potomac were sitting down to dinner when suddenly out of the woods on their right poured soldiers of the II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.  The rifles belonging to the Union soldiers were unloaded and stacked.  The first division on the line collapsed; the second division realigned from east-west to north-south, to face the onrushing Confederates, but they were quickly overwhelmed and the order to retreat was given.  The general commanding the XI Corps stood, waving a red flag, trying to rally his troops, but he only managed to gather a few small pockets of his soldiers before his corps disintegrated.

Several thousand men of the XI Corps were able to rally at Fairview, which lay across the road from the Chancellor mansion.  These brought artillery to bear against the lead division of the II Corp's attack; by this point, the soldiers of this division were becoming disorganized and the attack lost its impetus.  It was 7:15 p.m., and the flank attack had advanced more than 1.25 miles.  Fighting would continue after night fell, and the II Corps would lose its commander, the legendary Stonewall Jackson, to an incident of friendly fire, but the flank attack had accomplished its purpose, and the Army of Northern Virginia had won another of its storied victories against the Union Army.

The architect of this great victory was the venerable Robert E. Lee, who divided his army to send Jackson's corps around to attack the Union flank.  The movement of Jackson's men was masked by the dense forests of The Wilderness area which surrounded Chancellorsville.  The victory would force the Army of the Potomac to retreat back across the Rappahanock River; its commander would soon resign.  To follow-up his triumph, Lee took his army north into Pennsylvania, toward a rendezvous with destiny at a small town named Gettysburg.

Among the errors of the Union generals at Chancellorsville was the failure to secure their right flank against attack.  When digging in the night before the battle, the troops had created log breastworks, which would have been formidable had the Confederates elected to make a frontal assault.  On May 2, Lee did order an attack against the Union front, but only to fix it in place while Jackson moved around to the flank.

The lesson to take from this battle is the necessity to secure our "flank" against the assaults of the adversary.  We should not expect our enemy to assault only our well defended front, neither should we be lulled into to complacency when our front appears to be holding against the temptations and attacks of the adversary.  We may think we have dealt the foe a blow and driven him off as we have studied the scriptures, fasted and prayed, but the enemy will not rest, he will continue to look for a weak spot in our lines, and when he finds it, he will attack.

A couple of years ago, I was watching church videos on the Old Testament. One video was about Moses and the vision he saw.  After the vision, the adversary came to him to tempt him, demanding at one point that Moses worship him. Moses responded, "Who art thou, for I am a son of God." I was struggling with self esteem at the time, but when he said that it was as if I was hit by a bolt out of the blue.  "Of course" I said, "I am a child of God!"  I started telling Satan to take a hike, to go sell that line about low self worth to someone else because I was no longer buying it.

Not long after this I was reading the first book of Gerald Lund's Kingdom and the Crown trilogy, set during the time of the Savior's ministry. At one point Jesus asks a reluctant convert if he would ever walk away, and the convert says "No, because I know who you are." Sometime after that I faced some temptations "which so easily beset me" and as I resisted I heard the challenge "why?" I said, "because I know who I am and I know who He is." The temptations went away, and for a long time I was as strong as I have ever been.

I was able to keep this strength for a remarkably long time, and as a result I got complacent.  All the while, and rather subtly, the adversary was working on a weak spot he had found in my defenses.  Inevitably, I felt worn down and I succumbed to temptation.  After losing my Chancellorsville, I then had to fight many a difficult battle to regain the ground I lost.

But I did not have to fight alone, for in my weakness, when I humbled myself and exercised faith, God made me strong.  We need not rely on our own strength alone, for we have the strongest ally in our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ.  Because of our weakness, we may fail, but we can always return unto Him and cry out for forgiveness, and He will be there for us, with outstretched arms.